This invention pertains generally to weapon systems and, in particular, to an improved weapon system using mortar projectiles having self-contained guidance systems to interdict armored vehicles.
As is known, modern armored vehicles are all characterized by a high degree of mobility. When many such vehicles are deployed in an engagement, an opposing land force equipped with known "anti-armor" weapon systems is extremely vulnerable, especially if a relatively high level of loss of vehicles is acceptable. That is to say, to survive an attack by massed forces of modern armored vehicles, an opposing land force must be equipped with a weapon system that can, inter alia, achieve a high degree of lethality by exploiting minor defects in the protective armor of modern armored vehicles without requiring exposure to direct fire from the armored vehicle.
Current anti-armor weapon systems used by land forces generally utilize direct line-of-sight guidance techniques wherein a gunner is required to keep a set of "cross-hairs" in an optical tracker on the intended target while simultaneously providing guidance commands to a wire-guided missile to maintain the missile centered within the "cross-hairs". Because a direct line-of-sight to the intended target is required, the gunner may be exposed to counterfire during launch and flight of the missile. The advantage of camouflage which may initially screen the gunner is offset by the fact that the velocity of the counterfire from the intended target is from three to five times faster than current anti-armor weapons. Furthermore, explosions from large gun rounds impacting close to a gunner near the end of the flight time of a wire-guided missile may cause the gunner to flinch so that the intended target is missed. Furthermore, because known anti-armor systems are direct line-of-fire systems, the wire-guided missiles of such systems will generally impact on the front or sides of the intended targets. The front and sides of tanks and other armored vehicles are generally more heavily armored than the top or rear and therefore the lethality of known anti-armor systems is degraded.